About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Houthis stage ''reopening'' of Yemen's parliament

Members of Yemen's parliament convened in the capital Sanaa
on Saturday for the first time since a civil war began almost two years
ago, in a move aimed at bolstering the rebel Houthi movement and
challenging the Saudi-backed exiled government.

The armed Houthis
and their allies in the General People's Congress (GPC) party headed by
powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh control Sanaa and have
withstood thousands of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition.
After
UN-backed peace talks to end the war collapsed last week, the Houthis
and the GPC set up a governing council to rule the country despite UN
and government opposition. All of the present members of parliament voted for the new council.
The Saudi backed presidnet Abed Rabbo al Mansour Hadi denounced the parliamentary session as a "violation" of the
constitution and a "crime punishable by law", in remarks carried by the
official Yemeni Saba news website. "Whatever takes place at this meeting has no legal effects and cannot be implemented," he said.

According to the constitution, more than half of the 301-member
national assembly have to attend the session for voting to take place.

Sanaa airport has been closed since the Saudi coalition on Tuesday
launched a wave of air raids in and around the capital, for the first
time in three months. The raids had been halted as
Kuwait hosted UN-brokered peace talks between and the Yemeni government
and the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies. The talks collapsed last week after the rebels appointed their governing coalition. In
July the Houthis and their allies rejected a UN peace plan that called
on them to withdraw from territory they had occupied and give up heavy
weapons seized from the army. The rebels said the plan did not meet their key demand for a unity government.

The United Nations says more than 6,400 people, mostly civilians, have
been killed in Yemen since the coalition air campaign began in March
2015.The fighting
has driven 2.8 million people from their homes and left more than
80 percent of the population needing humanitarian aid.